


Down in the Dirt

by KitsunesKnight



Series: The Awoken Wanderers - FFXIV Stories [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Adventure, Discovery, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 00:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11817852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsunesKnight/pseuds/KitsunesKnight
Summary: Adventurer Jennifer Holden is contacted by the Ul'dahn Adventurer's Guild to take a mission she's specifically qualified for, and offered a unique chance to discover rare and ancient information. But will it pan out? Is there even anything to be found? Or is there maybe something far more valuable than anyone was expecting?





	Down in the Dirt

“Ah, Jennifer, there you are!”

The Elezen smiled as she walked through the small crowd occupying the Quicksand. “Momodi, it’s good to see you again! How’s business been?”

The Lalafell spread her arms towards the crowd. “Well, as always. And as happy as I am to see you again, I do have to apologize for pulling you all the way over here, but I honestly could think of few more qualified for the mission that came in.”

Jen waved her hand dismissively. “Not to worry, Momodi, I’m happy to be considered! Now what exactly is this job I’m to take? It’s not often I’m sent such a cryptic message!”

Momodi shrugged and crossed her arms. “I was just given the requirements for whoever was hired, I don’t know anything about the job itself. You’d have to talk to the one who requested the mission for that.”

Jen frowned and placed a finger along her cheek, spending a moment in thought. This mission was suddenly raising some concerns, though if they were submitting an official request through the Adventurer’s Guild, it had to be of at least some interest. And what exactly made herself among the most qualified of adventurers to look into it?

“Well, alright then, where can I find the client?” She asked, succumbing to curiosity.

Momodi opened her mouth to respond, but stopped and looked past Jen, who turned to find a hooded figure pull back their hood just enough to make out the features of a young woman. “That would be me, and I’d prefer if we could talk in private.”

Concerns indeed, Jen thought, as she glanced back at Momodi, who shrugged again, but hopped down from her position behind the counter, and waved them both into a back room. Jen offered a gesture that she would follow after the robed woman, and she took the lead.

The trio filed into the back room and Jen closed the door behind them, turning back in time to see the woman shed her robe entirely. Jen was now able to see that the woman wore a fairly upper-class style of dress, though one hardy enough for travel, and certainly Ul’dahn in style. She was tall, for a Midlander, though Jen had to guess she had Highlander blood in her. Her skin was darker than hers by a number of degrees, and her dark red hair had tints of a deep green at the ends. She had bright green eyes, and a dark green mark on her left cheek, an old tribal marking perhaps, or a simplified family crest? Maybe both, but she wasn’t about to ask, she had another question on her mind.

“Alright, so what’s the mission?” Jen asked, crossing her arms.

The woman smiled. “Straight to the point, though I suppose it makes sense considering the secrecy you’ve encountered thus far. Not to worry though, the secrecy is meant to assist you, I don’t want stray ears overhearing and taking it upon themselves to do our mission for us.”

“Our? Us?” Jen questioned.

The woman nodded. “I’ll be accompanying you,” the woman raised a hand before Jen could protest. “And before you say otherwise, allow me to explain in full.”

Jen closed her mouth and nodded.

“Thank you. I am Katarina Kulo, I’m sure you’ve heard the name?”

Jen nodded again. “Not exactly one of the most powerful houses among Ul’dah, but still notable enough, especially considering it’s a Hyuran family, not Lalafellin. You work closely with the Order of Nald’Thal as well, yes?”

Katarina nodded, smiling. “Correct. And it is in this partnership that I am requesting your assistance. We’ve come to the knowledge of a new cave system on Vylbrand that seems related to the ancient city of Nym. Considering the recommendation Momodi gave you, I assume you’re at least somewhat familiar with that?”

“An ancient city-state that disappeared shortly after the Great Flood, pieces can still be found floating about La Noscea, but aside from the hints of architecture, those pieces hold little to no clues on what the civilization was like, its history, or its people. Some relics have been found and studied, but few have given up much more than the chunks of land that still float,” Jen confirmed.

Katarina glanced at Momodi. “I am ever grateful for your ability to pick out the right adventurer for the job at hand, Momodi.”

The Lalafell leaned back in a chair, not quite smug, but certainly proud.

“Again, correct. Recently, however, information from some tablets translated by a member of the Marauder’s Guild - yes, strange, I know - has begun to circulate, and interest in Nym and what relics it may hold, as well as the coin one might earn from these relics, has begun to rise. The Order of Nald’thal has joined this pursuit as well, discreetly, in an attempt to preserve this knowledge, as opposed to sell it for profit,” Katarina continued, leaving a pause. “Well, at least not on the black market.”

“Thus the secrecy around the mission and who was requesting it,” Jen guessed.

“Three for three,” Katarina confirmed. “Finally we reach the end of my explanation. To keep a low profile, the Order cannot simply send its own people in, it would draw far too much attention, especially to others in the Syndicate. Instead, they asked my family for assistance, but as we have few historians or other such people interested in ancient civilizations, and considering it would be something of a small team, indeed it shall be only us two, I decided an adventurer may be worth hiring. In this case, someone adaptable, knowledgeable, and honest. A rare set of traits to be sure, but I had faith Momodi could find someone. And here you are. So, my dear adventurer, are you up to the task?”

Jen sat on this information for a moment. She had certainly done some research into Nym at the Arcanist’s Guild, it was one of Vylbrand’s largest mysteries, very similar to the Gelmorran ruins scattered about the Shroud, something she had also spent time researching. The chance to explore previously unfound ruins of the ancient civilization would be a rare chance indeed. Not to mention she was extremely curious about those tablets the Marauder’s Guild had translated. Perhaps she would get to meet this scholarly warrior, and learn whatever knowledge they had gleaned.

“Alright, I’m in!” Jen said brightly, her dour and serious mood up to this point completely evaporating. “When do we leave?”

Katarina chuckled. “Excellent. And soon, I have a few more things to prepare, now that I have secured your employment. I’d say early tomorrow morning, we can take a ship to Vylbrand and hike over to the ruins. Oh, and one question for me, actually.”

“Go ahead.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jennifer Holden,” Jen answered.

Katarina’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Holden? As in the high ranking members of both the Speakers and Gods’ Quiver? As in the _primal slayer_ that works with our very own Immortal Flames?”

“That’s cor-” Jen paused and did a double take. “I-I’m sorry, primal slayer?”

“You haven’t heard?” Katarina asked. “A number of adventurers were captured by the Amalj’aa - assisted by traitors, sadly - and taken before their summoned god, Ifrit. None walk away from a primal’s tempering with their minds intact, however these adventurers resisted the effects, slew the primal, and walked away with hardly a singed hair. One Logan Holden was among them, is he not related to you?”

Jennifer stared at the other woman in shock. “L-Logan? My little cousin, was here, in Thanalan, as an adventurer, captured by Amalj’aa, and slew a _primal god!?”_

“I’ll take it you didn't know then. Yes, he’s made quite a name for himself in recent days, wouldn’t you say, Momodi?”

The Lalafell nodded. “Very much so. He seemed a bit on the wishy-washy side when he first arrived, but he’s grown into quite the adventurer since then!”

“Well, this day just keeps getting more and more interesting…” Jen muttered to herself. “Sorry for the interruption, but yes, shall I meet you at Vesper Bay tomorrow morning then?”

Katarina nodded. “Yes, I will see you there tomorrow.”

* * *

“This is it,” Katarina introduced, showing Jen the small hole in the cliff wall.

Jen stared at the hole in disbelief. “How are we even going to fit in there? How was this even found?” She looked over at Katarina. “And how do you know what you say is in there is even actually in there?”

Katarina shrugged and stepped up to the hole. “I’ve already been inside. A member of Order was the one who found it though, quite by accident. It’s another story entirely, help me move these please?”

It was then that Jen realized the entry of the hole was being obscured by boulders that had been lashed to the entrance, by conjury, she guessed, though it could’ve been done by hand as well. A few moments later, the boulders had been pulled aside, the upper ones still hanging by some thick vines, ready to be pushed back into place should it be necessary to hide the hole once again.

“Let’s head inside, shall we?” Katarina asked, lifting a staff from its holster on her back, and causing the tip to glow.

“After you,” Jen offered, following the other inside the cave.

She also pulled a small branch wand from her pack, and lit it as well.She may not have overly much skill in conjury, but she’d learned a thing or two, and she always kept a small wand on hand for when such skills came in handy.

“So you’re an archer, conjurer, and arcanist?” Katarina asked as she led the pair down the tunnel. “I noticed your bow and tome, but the wand makes three. I can guess where a couple of those came from, but I’d rather hear your account.”

“I was put through training for both archery and conjury as a child,” Jen explained. “The conjury didn’t really stick with me, but I learned enough practical uses that it pays to have a conduit on hand. Archery ended up being more my style, though to answer your next question, I didn’t believe the God’s Quiver was the right place for me, I wanted to help Eorzea, not just the Twelveswood.”

“And the tome?”

“Came across the arcanists shortly after becoming an adventurer, and the books on history and mysteries of the world caught my eye,” Jen noticed the tunnel was beginning to split into branching paths, but Katarina seemed to have no difficulty picking their path. “After they noticed I kept coming back, they asked me to try joining, I ran through their tests, and seemed to pass with flying colours. Just something I decided to stick with since then, I suppose. It’s certainly an interesting discipline, far more so than conjury. How do you know where we’re going?”

Katarina stepped into another branching path and lifted her staff to the roof of the cave, and a marking began to glow. “When I came in earlier, I marked each path with a small bit of magic using my own aether. It’s completely invisible otherwise, but when my magic comes near it, it reacts and lights up. A little trick I picked up a couple years ago.”

Sure enough, as Katarina moved past it, and Jen lifted her own wand to the spot the glowing rune had appeared, there was nothing to be seen. Maybe she could learn the same trick, it would certainly make marking paths through ruins easier, and no one could come and steal her finds either.

They walked in relative silence the rest of the way through the tunnels, and thankfully it didn’t take long for them to open up into a slightly larger cavern.

“In case your sense of direction has gotten turned around in the tunnels,” Katarina began, lifting her staff to brighten the room. “This is almost directly below the remaining floating pieces of Nym, more or less. Looks like whatever used to stand here, or float here, was thoroughly buried after the Great Flood and, more than likely, the Calamity as well. Or, perhaps we can thank the latter for granting us access to the area. Regardless, here’s our newly discovered ruin of Nym, for your intellectual consumption.”

Jen looked around astonished. She wasn’t entirely sure what kind of building it was, or if it was multiple buildings that had fallen into each other. The structure wasn’t exactly intact, but she could tell where at least one building had once stood. The cave was only maybe twice her height, but wide enough that she could possibly envision that the tunnel had lead them straight down a city street, with a building on each side. The cave was larger on the left side, and more of the building’s foundation could be seen there. Moving closer, and stepping around chunks of rubble, she found one of the pillars near the street-facing side had writing in it.

“What’s it say?” Katarina asked, leaning in next to Jen to look at the writing.

“I’m not sure, I looked over some of the Nymian language from what information we had at the Arcanist’s Guild, but I never dedicated overly much time to it, nor was much information present. I do have some notes though…”

Jen put her wand between her teeth, and began to dig through her pack, pulling out a well worn notebook. She began to flip through its pages, and stopped when she found a page with similar writing as that on the pillar.

“Here,” she said through her wand-filled mouth, before pulling it out and sticking it under her armpit instead. “This is similar, though not exact. Something translated, meaning something like… health? Or healing?”

“Interesting,” Katarina mused, glancing at the notes, the writing on the pillar, then the building at large. “Maybe a medical facility? Did they use White Magic in Nym?”

“No, I don’t think so…” Jen said absently, flipping through a few more of her notes. “It certainly could be a place of medicine though, the Nymians did have a notable mind for military tactics, I can only assume they’d have the ability to heal their soldiers as well.”

“Well, let’s see if we can’t get inside then, shall we?” Katarina offered.

Between the two of them, they managed to find some rubble they could reasonably move and, with a bit of noise and a lot of dust kicked up, stepped inside the crumbled building. Things weren’t much better inside. Many areas were just filled with rubble, and what was left was almost completely destroyed by the passage of time. Flakes of rusted metal could be found, or fossilized wood.

“Well, with all this, the general layout of the room… considering what’s left…” Jen ran her hand along a large rock up against what must’ve been one wall of the room, and found it was more likely to be a fossilized shelving unit. “This was definitely a medical centre of some sort.”

“Fascinating…” Katarina breathed, taking in the sights. “But what can we find. Something we can secure, take back with us?”

Jen shrugged. “I… I dunno, I guess we can start looking around?”

“Let’s get to work then!”

Again the pair went to their tasks, scouring the rubble filled ruins, shoving boulders and broken pieces of stone to uncover new areas. Finally, Katarina pushed away a large piece of stone, possibly from the ceiling, and with a grunt, called out to Jen.

“Jennifer! Over here!”

Quickly abandoning her own fruitless search, Jen went to see what her companion had uncovered. “What is it?”

Katarina pulled her head up from where the stone had been, and held up a small clump of rocks. “It looks like… a mineral perhaps? I’ve not seen a natural gem that looks quite like this before however, and trust me when I say I’ve seen many, real and fake.”

Jen didn’t argue, instead picking up the clump of stone and inspecting it closely. Much of the outer layer was the same rock that the tunnel and earth itself was made up of, but the part that had caught Katarina’s eye was instead the brilliant blue gem inside this outer layer. As she looked at it, Jen swore it seemed to shimmer, almost glow.

“Did you see that?” Jen asked.

Katarina lifted her eyes from the rocks. “See what?”

Jen shook her head, still staring at the rocks. “Nothing… But I think I can get it out.”

She put the rock down on the floor and took another small nearby rock and began chipping at the outer layer.

“Be careful, we don’t want to damage it!” Katarina insisted. “This could be the exact valuable object we were looking for!”

“I am…” Jen assured, absentmindedly, still chipping at the rocks. “Just a little more…”

Suddenly the outer layer cracked and shattered, crumbling away, and revealing not just a gem, but instead a glowing, shaped stone, with a symbol etched into the stone.

“That… is that… Is that a Soul Stone…?” Katarina said in almost a whisper.

Jen nodded silently, and used her thumb to brush more dust away, and as soon as she touched it, it glowed brightly. The rest of the dirt and rock simply dropped away, and Jen closed her eyes as the light began to blind her. When she opened her eyes, a small aetherical figure fluttered before her eyes.

“What…?” Jen asked, confused.

_[Greetings]_

The sound echoed in Jen’s head and she jerked backwards, falling onto her rear and hands.

“What, did something happen?” Katarina asked, jumping to Jen’s side.

“It… It spoke? I think?” Jen said, staring at the floating aetherial figure. “Sort of, anyway, at least, I heard it.”

_[You are my new master, the one who summoned me, finally a new Scholar!]_

“Scholar…?” Jen questioned.

“Is it still talking to you?” Katarina asked, softly but insistent.

Jen nodded. “Yeah gimmie a sec,” she answered before turning her attention back to the figure. “What do you mean, a Scholar? What are you?”

_[I am a fairy, summoned and bound to the Soul Stone you now hold. I am yours to command. I see Nym has been gone for some time… You must require much assistance in learning how to use my magics correctly. This will take some work.]_

Jen’s eyes narrowed. “I think it’s being sassy at me. But it’s agreeing to help? I think it’s bonded with me already…”

_[Quite. You at least know the basics of arcanima if that tome is anything to go by, it shouldn’t be hopeless.]_

“Well, it wasn’t quite what we were hoping, but at least it’s something,” Katarina said with a shrug. “Let’s see what else we can find here.”

_[I can assist. I know where important documents were stored, potential information. If it’s not completely caved in, it should be salvageable.]_

With the fairy’s help, Jen and Katarina managed to find a few choice pieces of information, get them safely placed in their packs, and decided that this was a good time to pack it up and head back out. The fairy disappeared as they began to head out, with a comment about watching from within the stone.

“I think we’ve got the biggest, most important pieces. With this I think we can officially secure the location with the Order’s help, and excavate what else might lie within. At least we won’t be at the mercy of any treasure hunters finding the easiest pieces,” Katarina said as they exited the tunnel entrance. “Help me put these back into place?”

The pair quickly resecured the boulders to make the tunnel entrance look like a tiny hole once again, to keep it safe until the Order could come take ownership of the area. Once it was done, Katarina turned back to Jen.

“Thank you for the help, Jennifer. You’ll get your payment when we return to Ul’dah, but something tells me you’ve got something far more valuable than some coin,” she said, pointing to the Soul Stone still in Jen’s hand.

She held it up. “Wait, I can keep it?”

“Well, you found it, and the fairy began to communicate with you, and you do have the skills to use it, according to what you said. So why not? I think you’ve proven trustworthy enough so far. In fact, I might ask for your assistance in the future with such matters.”

Jen smiled and clutched the stone in her hand. “I think that sounds great. Thank you, Katarina.”

Katarina smiled back. “Please, call me Kat. I look forward to working with you.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've managed to seriously write for either of these characters of mine for a very long time, and the first time they've ever existed together like this. I'm really happy with how this turned out, and even happier to establish these characters concretely after sitting on their stories for so long.


End file.
